Notifications & Email Preferences

VitalSentinel keeps you informed in two places: the in-app notifications inbox and your email preferences. This page covers both.

In-App Notifications Inbox

The notifications inbox lives at /dashboard/notifications and is accessible from the bell icon in the sidebar. Anything that needs your attention - alert triggers, billing events, system announcements, welcome messages - lands here.

Notification Types

Severities

Each notification carries a severity that controls its color:

• Info - general information, no action required
• Success - something completed successfully
• Warning - something that may need attention
• Error / Critical - something that needs attention now

Tabs

The inbox has two tabs:

• Unread (default) - only items you haven't read yet
• All - everything, including read items

Grouping

You can switch the display between a flat list and one grouped by domain. Grouping is useful if you manage many domains and want to see at a glance which sites have outstanding notifications.

Marking as Read

• Click any notification to open its details. It's marked as read automatically.
• Use the eye icon to Mark as read without opening, or to Mark as unread afterwards.
• Use Mark all as read to clear the unread count in one action.

Deleting

Delete individual notifications you no longer need with the trash icon. Deleted notifications cannot be recovered.

Sidebar Unread Count

The bell icon in the sidebar shows your current unread count. The count updates in real time as you read or delete items.

Email Preferences

Some notifications also send email. Email behavior is configured in two places:

Per-Alert Email Toggle

Each alert rule has its own Notify by email toggle. See Alert Notifications for details on what email alerts include and how to configure them.

Weekly Domain Reports

VitalSentinel can send a weekly email summary for each domain you have access to. Reports go out every Monday and include the past week's headline metrics.

Configure them in Settings → Weekly Domain Reports (/dashboard/settings):

1. Open your account Settings.
2. Scroll to the Weekly Domain Reports card.
3. Toggle each domain on or off individually.

You'll only see this card once you have at least one domain. Each domain is opt-in per user - other team members can subscribe or unsubscribe independently.

Tips

• Use Unread as your inbox. Treat the Unread tab like an email inbox - read or dismiss items, then move on.
• Group by domain when triaging incidents. It's the fastest way to see which sites have multiple things going wrong at once.
• Keep weekly reports on for client domains. They double as a low-effort weekly check-in for your stakeholders.

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